Little Less than Perfect
by on rooftops
Summary: "Nothing that is complete breathes." - Antonio Porchia — Pairings and characters in 99 words.
1. blink: dumbledore and grindelwald

**General Disclaimer: **I do not own _Harry Potter_. **  
A/N:** This is a series of 99 drabbles in 99 words, each based on a certain theme. I appreciate reviews, so please feel free to leave one!

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**Characters:** Albus Dumbledore + Gellert Grindelwald  
**Theme:** Blink

It's measured, a drop of both eyelids at once, and then your bright blue eyes look at me as if we might have some intrinsic connection.

But if you understood my dreams – wanted what I wanted and needed what I needed, then you wouldn't be you. You ought to want the opposite: I crave attention and I want eternity and I need you. I hope that you crave anonymity and want finality and (especially) need me.

Every time you blink, I'm terrified that when you open your eyes, you'll really _see_ me – you'll see that I'm poised for destruction.


	2. love: voldemort and bellatrix

**Characters: **Voldemort + Bellatrix Lestrange  
**Theme: **Love

It's not as if he's ever felt it. Oh, he's felt obsession, he's felt lust, he has desired and he has possessed_.__  
_But he's never felt love. He's never wanted to.

When he sees her, with her hair falling in inky waves to her waist and her lips dyed a shade of blood and her laugh a fierce burst of concentrated cruelty, he knows what he's feeling. It's hot – lacing his veins and pulsing through him like power, like the night he first killed. It's desire, lust, passion; he's already possessed her.

Really, who needs love? He has control.


	3. light: astoria and draco

**Characters: **Astoria Greengrass + Draco Malfoy  
**Theme: **Light

Oh, he is _beautiful_. She isn't sure how else to describe him. But he is, because he has those gray eyes, the ones that cut through darkness and burn through her exterior and catch at her heart as if they were some sort of self-altering drug.

His skin shines like starlight and his hands streak across her skin like fire and he glows inside the way fireflies do. He sets torches inside the darkest crevices of her soul and shines into her eyes.

And she knows, okay? She knows she sounds like a Hufflepuff.

But he is her light.


	4. dark: draco and astoria

**Characters: **Draco Malfoy + Astoria Greengrass  
**Theme: **Dark

It is black on his skin.

He presses a sharpened quill in bloody dots down the length of the snake and around the curve of the skull as he lists his mistakes:  
_Dumbledore_, _Potter_, _Weasley_, _The Dark – no, dammit – Voldemort_, _Crabbe_…

Then a soft hand tugs the quill from his, lips brush down his forearm and a tongue sweeps along the darkness etched on his skin as if she could gather it all up in one bitter mouthful and send it off to oblivion.

"You need to forgive yourself." And with her there, that no longer seems beyond impossible.


	5. seeking solace: ginny and harry

**Characters: **Ginny Weasley + Harry Potter  
**Theme: **Seeking Solace

Ginny wonders why you're allowed to have a best friend, but not a best brother.

She asks Harry this and he says, "You are, Gin." But maybe he's just telling her what she wants to hear.

She presses her face against his neck and whispers, "Well, I guess it doesn't matter now anyway. I like them all the same." And then his neck is salty, wet with her tears. "Fred was my favorite."

His arms tighten around her as he kisses her hair and his voice is soft. "He still is – that doesn't change."  
Harry knows something about eternity.


	6. questioning: narcissa malfoy

**Character: **Narcissa Malfoy  
**Theme: **Questioning

The Potter boy falls back to the ground, and she doesn't care. He doesn't matter, that scrawny schoolboy. Neither does the creature holding the wand. Nothing does, without Draco.

She presses her hand to Potter's chest and is shocked and relieved at the rhythm playing against her fingertips.  
The question burns from her tongue, and the answer returns air to her lungs. She finds bravery somewhere beneath years of instruction and looks up at that _bastard_ and informs him that he's done it, he's killed the boy.

But inside oxygen pulses and informs her over and over: _he's alive._


	7. break away: fawkes

**Character: **Fawkes  
**Theme: **Break Away

The giving, golden chain woven of love and magic that has bound me to Earth for centuries disintegrates painlessly. I step to the window ledge, spread my wings, and drop into a tender breeze. The wind blurs the world into a mess of colors, pushing tears from my eyes. I wonder if they could have saved him.  
I wonder if he wanted to be saved – sometimes, we're prepared for the end.

I sing because the world is empty of him, because the starlight is right where it glows against my beak, and because it is time to break away.


	8. heaven: charlie

**Character:** Charlie Weasley**  
Theme: **Heaven

He is sick of being surrounded by animals. Fred and George could bloody well pass for monkeys, and Bill will fuck anything that sways. Ron walks like a giraffe and has spots like a giraffe and therefore likely _is_ a giraffe, while Gin might turn into a cat at any moment, and Percy was surely a fish in another life.

So maybe it's ironic that his heaven is a place full to bursting with dangerous, deadly, (beautiful), fierce, (passionate) animals. He's just traded the warm blooded for the cold.

But then, dragons are sometimes more human than his family.


	9. innocence: tom riddle jr and ginny

**Characters: **Tom Riddle + Ginny Weasley  
**Theme: **Innocence

He had always believed that innocence found its beauty in its corruptibility, and he saw such gloriously corruptible innocence in her childish handwriting – in the circular dots of her i's and the hope that shone from her words. He drew her childhood from her through inked confessions and dangerously naïve trust.

He latched onto her soul and pulled her from herself, draining innocence the way the moon lures the tide to its frightening climax. He knew her as he knew himself, but he didn't understand her.  
He didn't understand how she was able to stop herself from _becoming_ him.


	10. drive: katie and oliver

**Characters: **Katie Bell + Oliver Wood  
**Theme: **Drive

You always had that drive. Fred and George made fun of it, and Harry mimicked it and Angelina and Alicia laughed at it all and I – I just wanted it. I mean, I wanted _you_ and your drive, your manic smile and the glint you got in your eyes when you were on the verge of having everything you wanted.

The glint I saw that morning we ran into each other outside the stadium and I grabbed your jumper and kissed you.  
When you backed away your eyes still shone, and I knew we were better than all right.


	11. breathe again: sirius

**Character: **Sirius Black  
**Theme: **Breathe Again

It's the way the sunlight drops through the haze of leaves and arcing branches and heats your fur. It's the tangible tangle of wind and rain, smattering in lovely harmony on the ground and your nose and dripping beautifully into your eyes.

Most of all, it's the way air feels when you inhale, the way it blows down your throat holding nothing more innocuous than puffs of dandelion wishes – no more death, depression, demise hanging on every breath.

This is what it feels like to breathe, the way you haven't for twelve years. This is what _life_ feels like.


	12. memory: hermione and ron

**Characters: **Hermione Granger + Ronald Weasley  
**Theme: **Memory

She'll never tell anyone, because it's personal, see. But her first memory of Hogwarts, her first memory of the way her life is now, is of Ron. Which is stupid, because he was such an arse when they first met. But she remembers him clutching that chipped wand and directing it at his rat, she remembers the hope shining on his freckled face and the endearing smudge on his nose and she remembers thinking, _This is what magic is. This is what I want._

And after a few (thousand) years and a few (million) tears, she got it all.


	13. insanity: lockhart

**Character: **Gilderoy Lockhart  
**Theme: **Insanity

It's not so bad, here. Nice people come round, people who smile at him and give him milky tea sweetened with four sugar cubes, _please_. There's violet ink and extravagant-looking quills and a couple across the room who're sweet, even if the woman is a bit obsessed with gum wrappers.

It's just, sometimes he misses _something_. It's not fame – he's got scrolls and scrolls of that. It's not friends – he has the twittering healers. It's not even sanity, because yes, he's insane, but something tells him he's never known sanity.

It must be more. He thinks he's missing life.


	14. misfortune: dudley

**Character:** Dudley Dursley  
**Theme:** Misfortune

His whole life, he thought he was fortunate. His parents gave him whatever he wanted. His friends followed him, his enemies feared him, and everyone else was too unimportant to count. He had his scrawny cousin of a punching bag around all the time, so whenever he felt down he had someone to make feel worse.

And then this strange old _wizard_ (badword) comes along and tells him that his parents destroyed him. And he starts wondering, what if all those good things were really signs of his misfortune?

Here's the real question: is it too late to change?


	15. smile: percy and audrey

**Characters:** Percy Weasley + Audrey Weasley  
**Theme:** Smile

See, he grew up being the serious one. You've got to understand, he didn't really _want_ to be serious, it's just where he fell in the family and he was too tired to try and change.

But she knows he's more than his settled place in chaos. She knows he's seen more, suffered more, laughed more than the forehead wrinkles suggest.  
So when he says something – he can't even remember what – and she smiles, actually curves her lips and presses dimples into her rosyrosyrosy cheeks, how can he stop himself from falling in love?

He can't. So he doesn't.


	16. silence: phineas nigellus

**Character: **Phineas Nigellus  
**Theme:** Silence

He returned to his painting in Grimmauld Place just once after that night. He only went because Dumbledore asked him to; he would never have gone back to the most noble and _empty_ home of the Blacks on his own, not after the Potter boy smashed everything to pieces – the headmaster's office, Phineas's past, and his future. He didn't know why Dumbledore had sent him there; he already knew what he'd find.  
The old woman had finally stopped shrieking. The room upstairs reeked of absent hippogriff. The house elf wasn't there. The home was a shell.

He found silence.


	17. blood: snape

**Character: **Severus Snape  
**Theme:** Blood

It came down to the pressures of his classmates – to their insults, to James Potter's fucked up band of idiotic children, to hatred and obsession and jealousy. It came down to the ones who accepted him – because they were all desperate for power, and he had the skills to attain it – and the ones who rejected him.

In truth, it came down to three variations of one word:  
pure-blood  
half-blood  
mud-blood.  
His desire, his reality, and his deepest, worst, betrayal.

He _hated_ the word mud-blood, detested the lingering memory of stricken green eyes and an eternity of unrequited love.


	18. rainbow: rolf and luna

**Characters: **Rolf Scamander + Luna Lovegood  
**Theme: **Rainbow

She glowed with the hazy reality of a thousand post-sunshower rainbows. Life flickered through her eyes like delicious truths, and she held onto dreams with the tightfisted grip of a child. But what a _different_ child, what a wonderfully unique girl – one who believed until belief no longer seemed unimportant, one who turned her dreams into reality.

She danced into his life at night, and he never again pictured starlight without thinking of the way it lit her eyes. He never wanted to, because she was his Luna, his girl of a thousand rainbows, and she was forever there.


	19. gray: peter

**Character: **Peter Pettigrew  
**Theme: **Gray

He preferred the color gray, really. He'd rather stretch his forearm out and see a tiny paw, see soft gray fur, feel the brush of human fingers across his back. He had always made a good rat, and that wasn't something to be proud of. But at least he had had his moments as a rat – _he had bit Goyle once._

Gray was better than pink, than silver. Silver was the worst. Silver hurt, silver was powerful, silver reminded him of all the evil in his soul.

Gray meant he was an animal. Silver meant he was a traitor.


	20. fortitude: dumbledore and harry

**Character: **Albus Dumbledore + Harry Potter  
**Theme: **Fortitude

The child exhibited strength at its most devastatingly resilient, and Albus knew Harry would succeed. He knew it when those green eyes stared up at him from beneath the jagged slash in his forehead; he knew it when the boy arrived at Hogwarts, undoubtedly hurting from years of abuse but somehow managing to choose _right_ over power; this boy, he knew before it all really began, would save them all.

Harry would remain strong for them – he would sacrifice himself in love, and it wasn't bravery so much as those four letters that defined the good in the world.


	21. vacation: teddy and lily

**Characters: **Teddy Lupin + Lily Luna Potter  
**Theme: **Vacation

He'd very much like to take a vacation – to escape from everyone's expectations and plans.

He'd like to apparate to her flat, tap his fist against the door seven times, and cross through the neutral zones of kitchen and living room to her bedroom, where he'd crawl beneath her covers.

What he'd really like to do is find a way to kiss her without feeling so goddamn guilty, a way to tell the world that he's in love without feeling so fucking judged.

What he'd _really_ like to do is wrap her in his arms and carry her home.


	22. mother nature: remus

**Character: **Remus Lupin  
**Theme: **Mother Nature

It was just an idiotic accident of time. If he could skip one phase of the moon his life would be near perfection. If he could just erase those nights he'd have a chance at happiness.

Sirius once asked if he wanted him to lasso the moon, and the bloke had been flirting through clichés, but Remus had wished that Sirius could have stolen the moon from Mother Nature's clutches and hidden it under Mount Everest, or beneath the Atlantic's restless waves.

It was easier wishing that a piece of rock didn't exist than wishing away his entire history.


	23. cat: mcgonagall

**Character: **Minerva McGonagall  
**Theme: **Cat

She's a Gryffindor – she's got bravery sunk in the lines on her face and her suppressed smiles; she's got daring laced through her veins, pressed into her skin, etched on her bones. But she sometimes wonders if it's cowardly to use bravery as a shield.

But then, it's not as if this hiding thing is a new development. She's been doing it since she was a child, and she'd become an animagus so she could always hide, always get away, if she needed to.  
So cowardice, if that's what this is, is nothing new.

She is _still _a Gryffindor.


	24. no time: james

**Characters: **James Potter + Lily Evans  
**Theme: **No time

And it's not funny when he sees the pale face, the vivid red eyes, and the long murderous hands. It isn't funny haha, he means. It _is _funny sad or funny strange. Because who knew, all those years ago, when he first saw Lily and believed that he had all that time – all those infinite days – to get to know her, to count the freckles on her back and touch every strand of her red hair, who knew that all that time would spin down to one moment?

One moment, one soul-searing second, and all their time's run out.


	25. trouble lurking: amy and tom riddle jr

**Characters: **Amy Benson + Tom Riddle, Jr.  
**Theme: **Trouble Lurking

_Dear diary,  
I've got this feeling. This awful feeling. Kind of like spiders have slipped beneath my skin and are making eight-legged tracks through my veins. Kind of like that. But it's never spiders, diary.  
__Here, it's always Tom.  
__And I'm so so scared of him._

_I don't think they should let everyone into orphanages. Baby boys with pale skin and dark hair and trouble lurking in their eyes – those ones shouldn't be allowed in.  
Those ones should be shipped to Bedlam immediately.  
It's where they'll end up anyway._

_If there's a god, it's where they'll end up.  
Amy_


	26. tears: dumbledore

**Character: **Albus Dumbledore  
**Theme: **Tears

He no longer knows how to cry. He stares at his wand, thinking about Ariana and Gellert, and his eyes are dry. Dead dry, fatigued dry, emotionless dry. He feels old, suddenly. Old and cold and closer to death than he'd ever expected to feel. When he was young he had assumed that his death would arrive with a wand's lightning-quick drop through static air. He hadn't thought he'd live long enough to recognize the deterioration of his aching body.

He wonders if he'll cry when he dies.  
If he does, his last tears will certainly stem from relief.


	27. foreign: fleur

**Character: **Fleur Delacour  
**Theme: **Foreign

She understands so little. She'll tell you that the whole world makes sense, she'll lie until truths feel as foreign as English on her tongue.

She isn't sure why she fell in love with Bill, but she did. She isn't sure why his mother dislikes her, but she does. She's unsure of why the youngest redhead calls her _Phlegm_ behind her back. She does (sort of) understand why Bill's youngest brother blushes _rouge_ when he sees her. But the little boy should really give up. She's not some Veela, some trampy whore.

All she _really _knows is she's needed.


	28. sorrow: molly

**Character: **Molly Weasley  
**Theme: **Sorrow

It had been unreasonable to expect them all to survive. Unreasonable, unreasonable. She repeats the word to herself twenty times a night.

But why couldn't it have been her instead? Why was it Fred – beautiful, laughing, hopeful Fred – who had lost all the brilliance of his soul in one moment? That moment, and the burning fury after, and all of the pain and the mourning that followed, had marked her family with tragedy. George was lost, Ginny was searching, and Percy was heartbroken.  
She believes she could have saved them all a little sorrow, if she had died instead.


	29. happiness: lucy and lorcan

**Characters: **Lucy Weasley + Lorcan Scamander  
**Theme: **Happiness

She pressed one daisy into his hand and he fell in love. He was five and she was four and neither of them knew what love meant, but that didn't matter. Because she told him, in carefully constructed miniature-Percy-speak, "There's a nargle on the smallest petal." He nodded as older Molly and saner Lysander snorted into their bouquets, because _there are no such things as nargles._

He pressed one rose into her hand and asked her, "Are you happy?"  
She was sixteen and smiling, but smiles meant nothing in her family.  
"I'm with you, Lorcan. Of course I'm happy."


	30. under the rain: albus and scorpius

**Characters: **Albus Severus Potter + Scorpius Malfoy  
**Theme: **Under the Rain

Under the rain, Al notices that Score's wet hair looks more silver than blond. His friend's Slytherin green (and it's so perfectly ironic that the Ravenclaw must have planned it) shirt clings to his back and his arms and after noticing _that _Al has a hard time bringing his eyes back to Score's star-colored hair.

Score wouldn't hear Al calling over the storm, so he runs after him instead. "Hey." He grabs Score's hand without thinking and Score turns, a smile on his soft, cynical, _perfect_ mouth and Al can't wait anymore – he kisses the rainwater from Scorpius's lips.


	31. flowers: george

**Character: **George Weasley  
**Theme: **Flowers

He hadn't been to the grave since the funeral, even though everyone said visiting would help.  
George thought that was bullshit. Fred wasn't there. Fred was nowhere.

Harry stopped him one day, told him that Fred would never really leave him. But why would his twin waste his afterlife hanging around a tombstone?

Just in case Harry knew something, George put flowers on his brother's grave. "I miss you," he told the granite. It rained after he left – the water burst the petals into colored sparks, fizzing up into the darkness.

Fred knew that George would be all right.


	32. night: lily

**Character: **Lily Luna Potter  
**Theme: **Night

She likes it best after the sky has darkened and the deceptive blink of a Muggle airplane has attracted the wasted wishes of naïve children. She slips out of her bedroom window, or out of the front doors of Hogwarts, and wanders.

She doesn't think. She doesn't dream, or make wishes on fake (or real) stars.  
She just is.  
And being – that way, the way where all she knows is who she is and where she is and the damply dark coolness of night air on her skin – that type of being, that's the kind that Lily lives for.


	33. expectations: salazar

**Character: **Salazar Slytherin  
**Theme: **Expectations

In the brief hours that Salazar spent asleep, he dreamt of the old days. Back then, he and Godric hadn't been at each other's throats, speaking to snakes hadn't ostracized him, and he had naively believed in the lasting nature of power.  
He had expected to grow old with them, practicing curses with Godric and beating Rowena at wizard chess and forcing Helga to play Quidditch.

During the passing days and the long restless pre-dream hours, he knew that his expectations had turned to shit.  
He would grow old with only snakes to mourn his slow and unavoidable death.  


* * *

**A/N: **For Mystii, who suggested the character **Salazar**.


	34. stars: katie and oliver

**Characters: **Katie Bell + Oliver Wood  
**Theme: **Stars

Katie woke up at one thirty with the need to fly, and she knew she wouldn't fall back asleep until she had felt the air around her and the stars on her skin. She slid silently from her bed and didn't bother to get dressed; it was late May, it was flying weather.

The pitch wasn't empty – of course it wasn't. He was always there. She flew up to meet him.

"Hi, Katie." He held a hand out; she took it.

"Hi, Oliver." They hovered, hanging still, and she tipped her head back and breathed in the night air.

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**A/N: **For Mystii, who suggested the pairing **Katie Bell** and **Oliver Wood**


	35. hold my hand: lysander and lorcan

**Characters: **Lysander + Lorcan Scamander  
**Theme: **Hold My Hand

Lysander is eleven and he is scared. He's certain that Lorcan is perfectly confident as they follow the other first years into the Great Hall. He knows his brother. Everyone knows his brother.  
Lorcan will get Gryffindor.

His fingers scrabble at Lorcan's, and Lorcan stifles a sigh as he allows Lysander to take his hand.

"It'll be fine, Lys."

"Easy for you to say, you know where you'll be."

"We're all going to be in the same classes. It doesn't matter," Lorcan reminds him.

But it matters to Lysander.  
He needs to know who he'll be without his brother.


	36. sanity: remus

**Character: **Remus Lupin  
**Theme: **Sanity

Every full moon his sanity escapes him, but he cannot lose it now. Not when Harry depends on him. His last best friend falls through the veil, and he can't follow after. He wants to follow. The webs of insanity woven through his mind make that veil's stillness tempting, its voices whisper a welcome. But he is sane.

And being sane, he clings to his best friend's son and tells him that he can't go after Sirius either. Harry is his anchor, just as much as he is Harry's.  
And being sane, Remus realizes that the world is insane.

* * *

**A/N: **For ModernDayRapunzel, who suggested the prompt **sanity**.


	37. answers: draco

**Character: **Draco Malfoy  
**Theme: **Answers

After it was all over, it seemed to Draco that he had always been wrong. Oh, he had had answers to every question – he had been the fucking Hermione Granger of the Dark Lord's side – but he had never been right.

Harry Potter, _he_ had had all the answers. He may not have answered every question correctly in school, but he had been right when it mattered. And Draco just wished that he could raise his head and answer questions clearly, with dignity and conviction.

He just wanted to be able to believe that his answers were right, again.

* * *

**A/N: **For ModernDayRapunzel, who suggested the prompt **answers**.


	38. everything: voldemort

**Character: **Voldemort  
**Theme: **Everything

He has often thought that coupled words had become the center of his life.  
Harry Potter. _Avada kedavra_. Complete power.  
A challenge. A means. An end. And he's just achieved it all – he has everything.

The half-giant (who could have been a weapon if he hadn't been a buffoon) clutches Harry Potter's corpse and he – Voldemort – has power. It is thrilling. He is beyond alive. He is the most powerful being in this forest, in this country, in this world.

He raises his wand, opens his mouth, and announces to the burnt and blackened castle that _he_ is everything.

* * *

**A/N: **For ModernDayRapunzel, who suggested the prompt **everything**.


	39. nothing: voldemort

**Character: **Voldemort  
**Theme: **Nothing

He sees him moving – pacing, holding a wand, breathing – and everything ceases to exist. Harry Potter speaks to him. Harry Potter – who should be dead, whose pulse-less body had cemented his power, whose death meant everything – speaks to him.  
Harry Potter calls him by that hateful, tainted name. Harry Potter acts as if he is better than him. Harry Potter treats him as if he is nothing.

But this is not true. Harry Potter is the one who is nothing. Because Voldemort still has a means, before his killing curse mistakes its master.

In death, for him, lies nothing.

* * *

**A/N: **For ModernDayRapunzel, who suggested the prompt **nothing**.


	40. ravenclaw: luna

**Character: **Luna Lovegood  
**Theme: **Ravenclaw

She was intelligent; she had always known that. Her logic was illogically rational; her mother had told her that.

The Sorting Hat told her that she belonged in Ravenclaw and as she took it dreamily from her blonde hair and crossed the Great Hall she wondered whether she really belonged anywhere at all. Maybe Ravenclaw was where they threw the rejects – the ones who weren't brave, cunning, or loyal, the ones who belonged only within their own minds, outside the world.

She didn't doubt herself; she doubted the Hat, and the way its magic made it divide them all.

* * *

**A/N: **For ModernDayRapunzel, who suggested the prompt **Ravenclaw**.


	41. dreams: lily and james

**Characters: **Lily Evans + James Potter  
**Theme: **Dreams

"Are you awake?" Her voice is soft in the stillness of the dormitory. James wonders if she's worried about the others hearing them, if she's already regretting slipping beneath his covers.

"No," he tells her.

"I think I've dreamed of this," she says, even though he's supposedly asleep.

"Of what?" he asks.

"You, and me. Us."

"Are you sure it was a dream?" he says, "Not a nightmare?"

"It couldn't have been a nightmare, if you were in it."

He hides his smile against her shoulder. Maybe she finally gets that he loves her. Maybe she finally loves him.

* * *

**A/N: **For Sparkle Ninja27, who suggested the pairing **Lily Evans **and **James Potter**.


	42. eyes: rose and scorpius

**Characters: **Rose Weasley + Scorpius Malfoy  
**Theme: **Eyes

It's something about his eyes. Her father will not accept that as an explanation, of course. But Rose sees some emotion highlighting the brightness of Scorpius's grey eyes and she doesn't understand. So she swallows her childhood prejudices and waltzes up to him, sticks out her hand and says, "Hullo, I'm Rose."

He is twelve to her eleven, and she lets him think that he knows more than her. It's all a tactic, all a game; she just wants to know why his gaze makes her shiver.

Five years later she gets it – it's not his eyes, it's him.

* * *

**A/N: **For Sparkle Ninja27, who suggested the pairing **Rose Weasley **and **Scorpius Malfoy**.


	43. abandoned: pansy

**Character: **Pansy Parkinson  
**Theme: **Abandoned

Pansy knows two things: time has passed, and she has changed. She is no longer a child, no longer a cowardly girl who would save herself by offering up a brave boy. But the rest of the world doesn't agree. The rest of the world knows only one thing: people never change. And so the rest of the world – her old friends, enemies, lackeys – they've all abandoned her.

But she refuses to abandon herself, and therefore will not be lost in all this continuous movement of time. The world may not care, but she is a part of it.

* * *

**A/N: **For x-mycloudisinthesky-x, who suggested the character **Pansy Parkinson. **


	44. slytherin: lily

**Character: **Lily Luna Potter  
**Theme: **Slytherin

Lily's life changed when she overheard her father tell Albus that the Hat lets you choose.

She took her mother's wand and colored her Gryffindor-red jumpers green. She stole a cheap, silver plastic snake-shaped ring from a Muggle shop and wore it when she slept. She borrowed texts on (in)famous Slytherins from her aunt Hermione's library and read them until the sun rose.  
She considered selfishness, selflessness, good, and evil; she decided on difference.

When the Hat settled on her head, she didn't need to ask, demand, or request. She had chosen ages ago.  
"You'll do well in Slytherin."  


* * *

**A/N: **For YourEyesLikeStars, who suggested the character **Lily Luna** with the prompt **Slytherin**.


	45. confusion: sirius

**Character: **Sirius Black  
**Theme: **Confusion

Sirius classified his life into stages: the too-brief carefree years; the worrisome time before Hogwarts; the Marauder period; and the War.

The War eroded into the shortest phase: Confusion. A single night when the whole of England should have erupted in earthquakes and the moon and all the stars ought to have plummeted; James and Lily killed, Harry alive, Sirius alone, and Peter guilty. For a few moments his mind whirled and his blood stirred and he just could not rationalize any of it.

And then all that confusion turned into conviction: Sirius was right, and Peter would suffer.

* * *

**A/N: **For iamweasleyfred, who suggested the prompt **Confusion**.


	46. fascinate: tonks and remus

**Characters: **Nymphadora Tonks + Remus Lupin  
**Theme: **Fascinate

Tonks is interested in the scent of the city air before dawn, the frisson of magic in her fingertips, the idiotic bravery of some and the intelligent cowardice of others, but nothing has ever fascinated her quite as much as Remus Lupin's smile. The lines by his eyes crinkle and he looks sort of happy, and Tonks cannot stop staring.

She fell in love with him first, of course, but his smile is a close second. She stares from the pillow beside him and thinks maybe his face when he smiles is the last fascinating sight she'll ever need.

* * *

**A/N: **For jojor99, who suggested **Tonks **with the prompt **Fascinate**. 


	47. letter: dennis and gabrielle

**Characters: **Dennis Creevey + Gabrielle Delacour  
**Theme: **Letter

Once a week, Fleur Weasley received an owl at work. It flapped into her office's antechamber and Dennis Creevey, her personal assistant, handed the letter to her immediately. Fleur always told Dennis the juiciest tidbits of gossip that Gabby included in the violet and pink-colored envelopes.

Dennis liked Gabby's stories, and he thought he would probably like Gabrielle herself. So one day, he handed her owl a letter written on green notepaper.

A week later, the owl dropped two letters on Dennis's desk: one for Fleur, and the other for a "Mr. Dennis Creevey, Impertinent but Strangely Endearing Assistant."

* * *

**A/N: **For Tat1312, who suggested **Gabby **and **Dennis** with the prompt **Letter**.


	48. danger: moaning myrtle

**Character:** Moaning Myrtle  
**Theme: **Danger

She doesn't particularly have a sense of it. Even in life she had never known when she was blathering her way into a dangerous situation. And now, she's failed to see it over and over. The Basilisk had been summoned through her bathroom the second time round (it hadn't been _hers_, before). The castle fell down around her in the battle, and she hadn't even sensed it coming.

For the first time, she starts to wonder if maybe it's not that she can't recognize danger; it's that she chooses not to. And maybe that sort of obliviousness is bad.

* * *

**A/N: **For Elizabeth Lullaby, who suggested the character **Moaning Myrtle **with the prompt **Danger**.


	49. waiting: the giant squid

**Character:** the Giant Squid  
**Theme: **Waiting

It has been alive for a very long time. Granted, its sense of time is a bit skewed, tied as it is to the way light looks when it hits the murkiness of the deepest parts of the Lake – a cloudy stretch in the middle of summer might confuse the whole year. Even so, the Giant Squid knows that its lifespan is not usual. It has survived several generations of merpeople, and has witnessed countless grindylow burials.

It has waited, and it sometimes thinks that there is nothing more tragic than decades (centuries?) spent waiting for nothing to happen.  


* * *

**A/N: **For Elizabeth Lullaby, who suggested the **Giant Squid**. I hope you like it!


	50. mischief managed: george and angelina

**Characters:** George Weasley + Angelina Johnson  
**Theme: **Mischief Managed

At first it feels disloyal. But she is there and he is sad (nothing conveys the depth of his sadness) and that sounds wrong and base but there it is.

Angelina coaxes a smile out of him on their second date and by their fifth he's laughing, sometimes. She stirs Bailey's into their coffee and serves chocolates for dinner; she presses kisses to his ear and tells jokes in bed; she always beats him at Quidditch but he never loses at Scrabble.  
And someday – not yet, but eventually – they'll engrave their wedding bands with the script: "mischief (finally) managed."  


* * *

**A/N: **For LifeOfBreeze, who suggested the pairing **George **and **Angelina**.


	51. rawr: ron and hermione

**Characters:** Ron Weasley + Hermione Granger  
**Theme: **"Rawr"

Hermione is standing in their bedroom, her eyes skimming the titles of the books lining the bookshelves. Or Ron assumes she's reading the titles; he's in the doorway and therefore cannot see her face. More importantly, _she_ cannot see _him_.  
There's only one thing to do: he creeps across the room and growls "Rawr" in her ear.

She jumps, but he's the one who ends up on the floor, his arms and legs bound in a spell.  
_For future reference_, Ron tells himself, as Hermione collapses into giggles beside him, _do not forget that your girlfriend is a witch_.

* * *

**A/N: **For LifeOfBreeze, who suggested the prompt **"rawr"**.


	52. multitasking: snape and lily

**Characters:** Lily Evans + Severus Snape  
**Theme: **Multitasking

"You'll be brill at OWLS. I promise." Lily taps a staccato rhythm against the table. "Let's go outside."

Severus continues slicing caterpillars.

"I hear they're giving out free Chocolate Frogs by the Lake."

He adds sixteen caterpillar segments to the potion.

"And Firewhiskey."

He begins chopping Fluxweed.

"James Potter asked me to Hogsmeade again."

He jerks his head up and turns to stare at her. "Oh?" He tosses a fistful of the herb into the potion, which hisses before overflowing, covering them both in stinging orange goo.

Lily laughs. "You really must learn to multitask, Sev."

He doesn't respond.

* * *

**A/N: **For ModernDayRapunzel, who suggested **Snape **and **Lily**.


	53. do not disturb: arthur

**Character: **Arthur Weasley  
**Theme: **Do Not Disturb

Arthur puts the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door to the garden shed the summer after the war. He supposes that he should be spending his time with his family, but every man needs an escape. He knows that they think his obsession with all things Muggle is crazy, but there used to be something comforting about dismantling and repairing Muggle appliances.

These days, though, he sits in silence and stares at the piles of stuff around him and asks himself why it all used to matter so much and he wonders when it stopped mattering at all.

* * *

**A/N: **For Marauder in Disguise, who suggested the character **Arthur Weasley**.


	54. lost: hagrid

**Character: **Rubeus Hagrid  
**Theme: **Lost

It comes to him in the middle of the night sometimes. It's a sort of panicked thing, a rapid, bursting, burning rush of fear, straight to his heart. He always forces it away, but it makes him think of how he felt after his father died, or after he sent Norbert to Romania, or after Aragog passed on – his loneliness has somehow become a sort of companion in itself. And that saddens him; it makes him feel as if he's gotten lost somewhere along the way, as if he's slipped out of everyone else's lives and found himself alone.

* * *

**A/N: **For magic is out there, who requested **Hagrid** with the prompt **lost**.


	55. standing still: lorcan, lucy, & lysander

**Characters: **Lorcan Scamander + Lucy Weasley + Lysander Scamander  
**Theme: **Standing Still

Lucy finds her cousins' vibrant lives exhausting. While they torture their friends and eviscerate their enemies, she stands still, waiting for people to seek her out. They always do.

Lorcan and Lysander would each prefer to have found her separately. She's a sort of magnet, drawing them to her until they all collide. Lorcan has been dreaming about her for months, and Lysander has traced her name onto countless ruined homework assignments.

But they find her together, and they cannot confess in front of the other. Besides, they think she knows.  
And she doesn't move toward either of them.

* * *

**A/N: **For abcx123, who suggested **Lorcan**, **Lucy**, and **Lysander. **


	56. forbidden: harry and ginny

**Characters: **Harry Potter + Ginny Weasley  
**Theme: **Forbidden

Harry kisses her hair and she sighs in her sleep, a small peaceful noise that inexplicably makes him panic. His heart is pounding so loudly he's sure it'll wake her, so he rolls out of bed and creeps from their bedroom. Leaning his palms on the kitchen counter, he inhales, exhales, inhales until his heart rate slows. He's scared of losing it all; he's terrified that something in the universe has forbidden him lasting happiness.

He keeps breathing.

When he's calm again, he slips back beside Ginny and pulls her to him. Harry simply refuses to let her go.

* * *

**A/N: **For Sparkle Ninja27, who suggested the prompt **forbidden**.


	57. flying: remus and sirius

**Characters: **Remus Lupin + Sirius Black  
**Theme: **Flying

He clutches the broomstick and glares as his friend swoops around him.

"Come _on_, Remus. You promised." The toe of Sirius's dragon-hide boot just barely brushes Remus's hair.

"I hate flying," Remus mutters.

Sirius hovers above him. "If you come up here, I'll," he hesitates, "I'll kiss you."

Remus just barely manages to keep his voice scornful. "I'm not some _girl_, Sirius."

"I know you're not. You're Remus, and I want to kiss you."

Remus stares up at him, waiting for the punch line.

"Only you," Sirius adds, his voice quiet, nervous.

Remus can't get up there fast enough.

* * *

**A/N: **For alltheprettygirls, who requested **Remus **and **Sirius** with the prompt **flying**.


	58. blush: seamus and lavender

**Characters: **Lavender Brown + Seamus Finnigan  
**Theme: **Blush

Some people thought Lavender was coquettish. That was just a big word for whore, skank, slut. It was the type of word Hermione Granger would use to describe her.

Really, Lavender just liked to make boys blush. Actually, by then (and forever after), it was just Seamus, because when he blushed his ears turned such an endearing shade of pink.

"Merlin, Lavender, would you stop?" His accent became even more pronounced when he was frustrated, which was another bonus.

"I like to see you blush," she confessed.

He turned bright pink, and she smiled. It was just so easy.

* * *

**A/N: **For Shockin'BlueEyes, who suggested **Seamus** and **Lavender** with the prompt **blush**.


	59. not alone: harry

**Character: **Harry Potter  
**Theme: **Not Alone

Harry stood in front of his parents' gravestones; he hadn't been back since that disastrous day ages ago. It almost seemed redundant to return to their graves when the Resurrection Stone had reunited them just weeks before, but he needed the reminder that, unlike all the other changes in this post-Voldemort world, his parents were still dead. He was still alone.

But no, that was wrong, he realized. Hermione linked her arm with his and Ron squeezed his shoulder, and vivid images of his parents and Sirius and Remus surfaced in his memory. Harry had never been less alone.

* * *

**A/N: **For Therealginnyweasley13, who suggested **Harry **with the prompt **not alone**.


	60. feel: draco and hermione

**Characters: **Draco Malfoy + Hermione Granger  
**Theme: **Feel

"You're icy," Draco informed Hermione on the first workday after New Year's.

"Pardon?"

"You always act like you don't have any emotions. When was the last time you actually _felt_ anything – happy or sad or angry?"

"I'm angry now," she told him coolly.

"You sure as hell don't act like you are." He leaned over her desk so he was staring into her frigid eyes. His lips were a centimeter from hers.

He expected her to pull away. She kissed him instead.

She knew how to feel, but what she felt with him wasn't so much emotional as physical.

* * *

**A/N: **For Poison Inkster, who suggested **Draco** and **Hermione** with the prompt **feel**.


	61. new: ron and hermione

**Characters: **Ronald Weasley + Hermione Granger  
**Theme: **New

Ronald Weasley noticed three unusual things when he woke up on Monday morning: his alarm hadn't gone off yet; he didn't have a hangover; and he wasn't alone.

Hermione Granger woke up on Monday morning and immediately knew three things: she had woken up late; she had had too much champagne; and she wasn't alone.

Her eyes opened. Ron swallowed. "This is…"

"New," she told him, tracing a line down his freckled arm.

"Good new?" He smoothed curly strands of mesmerizingly messy hair away from her face.

"Very good," she promised, sitting up and kissing his newly charming lips.

* * *

**A/N: **For Tat1312, who suggested **Ron **and **Hermione** with the prompt **new**.


	62. rant and rave: teddy

**Character:** Teddy Lupin  
**Theme: **Rant and Rave

When people began avoiding him in his fifth year, Teddy discarded his identity as the center of calm in the Potter-Weasley clan's constant state of calamity.

He found Victoire in the library and hissed, "What the hell is going on?"

"How do you mean?"

He glared. She knew.

Vic reluctantly handed him the _Daily Prophet_ she had been skimming. His father's photograph covered the first page, headed by: _When Monsters Lie: A look at False Heroism in Times of War_.

Teddy went straight to ranting, raving, shaking shelves with uncontrollable magic.

It probably didn't help with his image, much.

* * *

**A/N: **For jojor99, who suggested **Teddy** with the prompt **rant and rave**.


	63. mudblood: andromeda and ted

**Characters:** Andromeda Black + Ted Tonks  
**Theme: **Mudblood

Andromeda was partial to snow, so when Ted tasted it on the air one frosty night in late November he knocked at the Slytherin Common Room until Bellatrix answered. "What're _you_ doing here?"

Ted met her glare. "Is your sister around?"

"Andromeda, why the fuck is this mudblood looking for you?"

A bar of light from somewhere inside the common room struck Bellatrix and she collapsed to the floor, shaking and twitching. Andromeda appeared in the opening and stepped disdainfully over her wheezing sister.

She kissed him and said, "Tonight's the first snow."

Ted took her hand. "I know."

* * *

**A/N: **For Reciprocal, who suggested **Ted** and **Andromeda** with the prompt **mudblood**.


	64. green: james and lily

**Characters:** James Potter + Lily Evans  
**Theme: **Green

"I spy, with my little eye, something…green," James announced.

"Grass?" Marianne suggested.

"Leaves?" Sylvia guessed.

"Lily's eyes," Alice replied confidently.

"Nope, nope, and close, Alice." He beckoned the three of them closer and mock-whispered, "Just Evans, though."

"I hadn't realized I'd turned green, Potter," Lily called from where she was sitting nearby.

"You're green with envy, because I didn't ask you to play with us."

Marianne smacked James on the shoulder and Alice and Sylvia exchanged exasperated looks.

"Could you _have_ a bigger head?" But when Lily returned her eyes to her book she was smiling.  
So was James.

* * *

**A/N: **For Sparkle Ninja27, who suggested **Lily **and **James** with the prompt **green**.


	65. breakfast: the founders

**Characters:** The Founders  
**Theme: **Breakfast

"As I was saying, Helga, dear, I believe that you should make it a _little_ more difficult to get into your House." Salazar began spreading jam evenly on his buttered slice of toast.

"Salazar," Helga sighed.

"Just because the Hufflepuffs don't care about power," Rowena said, "doesn't mean that they are not a valuable asset to this school."

Before Godric could add his usual response to this redundant argument, his owl flew over the table, hooting as he spattered an inedible condiment onto Salazar's perfectly prepared toast.

"Well, shit."

"Literally." Godric smirked. He couldn't have put it better himself.

* * *

**A/N: **For andthenshesaid, who suggested **The Founders **with the prompt **breakfast**.


	66. prejudice: scorpius

**Character: **Scorpius Malfoy  
**Theme: **Prejudice

Scorpius's father took him aside and tried to teach him a new word.

"It's a big word," Draco warned.

"Bigger than _expelliarmus_?"

"Where'd you learn that?"

"You left a book sitting out, Daddy."

Draco hoped he hadn't left out any of the spell books that he had inherited from his parents.

"More important than _expelliarmus_," he said. "'Prejudice' – "

Scorpius interrupted, "Prejudice is when you're biased against something for no reason, like when you were against Muggles, even though they're harmless."

Draco thought that being a father would be a lot easier if his son weren't quite so smart.

* * *

**A/N: **For Shockin'BlueEyes, who suggested **Scorpius **with the prompt **Prejudice**.


	67. mirror: hugo

**Character: **Hugo Weasley  
**Theme: **Mirror

Hugo tried on his robes in the silence of the late summer afternoon. He stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom and shrugged the black cloth over his skinny shoulders, pushed up the sleeves and kicked out the hem so his scuffed trainers showed. Lily would have laughed at the wide smile on his face.

His hair was too wild and red and he had too many freckles, but he was magical and he was going to Hogwarts. He grinned at his reflection and thought his buckteeth weren't quite as apparent when he dressed like a wizard.

* * *

**A/N: **For Luna, who suggested the character **Hugo**.


	68. horizon: lily

**Character: **Lily Luna Potter  
**Theme: **Horizon

During their summers on the coast, Harry had noticed something about his daughter that gave him an uneasy feeling in his gut. Lily spent hours burying her tiny hands in the sand, her eyes focused on the horizon.

Harry wasn't surprised when Lily chose Slytherin. He didn't refuse when she asked to visit her uncle Charlie over breaks. She sometimes disappeared in the middle of the night and returned weeks later, sporting new freckles or fierce red windburn across her cheeks. And he wasn't surprised, because she had been searching for something beyond the horizon since she was born.

* * *

**A/N: **For tat1312, who suggested **Lily Luna** with the prompt **horizon**.


	69. library: lily and teddy

**Characters: **Lily Luna Potter + Teddy Lupin  
**Theme: **Library

Lily spent hours studying for NEWTs in the library. The room had become Teddy's personal torture chamber. He had nightmares (fantasies, _whatever_) about meeting her between the stacks.

One day in early October he turned the corner between the Defense and Potions sections to find her sitting on the floor, reading a book with her back against a shelf.

"Hi, Prof."

"Lil." He _wasn't_ thinking about his cursed dreams as he stepped over her long legs (and Merlin, they went on forever). "See you in class."

Lily smiled as he hurried away. She was ready; he'd fall soon enough.

* * *

**A/N: **For Elizabeth Lullaby, who suggested **Lily Luna **and **Teddy** with the prompt **library**.


	70. obsession: rose and tom riddle jr

**Characters: **Rose Weasley + Tom Riddle Jr.  
**Theme: **Obsession

Rose saw Ginny's name on a bottle of memories in the Ministry's Historical Records and immediately emptied it into the Department's Pensieve. She fell into the memory beside a man who was staring disdainfully at the collapsed figure of her young aunt. Rose wanted to hate him. But there was something horribly attractive about those eyes and the twist of his mouth.

She jerked herself out of the memory.

Rose found someone to eradicate her obsessive imaginings, but she still dreamt of bitter lips and wished for scornful eyes.

Maybe Rose was twisted.  
But, _Merlin_, he had been powerful.

* * *

**A/N: **For Sparkle Ninja27.


	71. rose: luna and blaise

**Characters: **Luna Lovegood + Blaise Zabini  
**Theme: **Rose

Luna wore a yellow rose on Monday, a white one on Tuesday, and a red one on Wednesday. It wasn't like Blaise was watching her, or anything. He just noticed things.

Thursday's rose fell from where she had slipped it behind her left ear and he Summoned it before the passing students could trample its lavender colored petals into the stone floor of the corridor. She smiled.

"You keep it," she told him. He scowled.

He hid it beneath his bed and he dreamt even more often of a girl who wore radish earrings and spoke in endearing riddles.

* * *

**A/N: **For Sparkle Ninja27.


	72. words: kendra and percival dumbledore

**Characters: **Kendra + Percival Dumbledore  
**Theme: **Words

Kendra read three words on a slip of parchment: _They deserved it_. She tucked the note in her silver locket and never took it out.

She filled several sheets of parchment with lighthearted lies and sent them to Percival Dumbledore, care of Solomon McNair, the current warden at Azkaban Prison.

She received four words in reply: _I love you, Kendra_. She added the note to her locket and wrote another letter.

Her sons buried the last message he ever sent in the fresh ground of their mother's grave. It was as simple as the first note: _Goodbye, my heart._

_

* * *

_

**A/N: **For hermione draco holmes, who suggested **Kendra** and **Percival Dumbledore**.


	73. bitterness: charlie, fleur, & bill

**Characters:** Charlie Weasley + Fleur Delacour + Bill Weasley  
**Theme: **Bitterness

Fleur's teeth catch at his lower lip, her hands ghost beneath his tee-shirt and his fingers twine through her hair and down her back. They're fumbling like lusty teenagers, and he's forgotten how bloody good it feels to give in to desire.

But she unwittingly presses a diamond into his back and she tastes of fire and lust and mostly of bitterness; she is his brother's wife – for him to touch her, to see her like this, is taboo, it is forbidden.

Despite the bitter edge to it all, he cannot help himself. He always comes back to her.

* * *

**A/N: **For ModernDayRapunzel, who suggested the prompt **bitterness**.


	74. puzzle: hermione and ron

**Characters: **Hermione Granger + Ron Weasley  
**Theme: **Puzzle

Lately she's been having difficulties sorting out how she's feeling. She's tried scribbling her emotions out on scraps of parchment, like they're a logic puzzle she can dissect and understand, but it hasn't helped.

She's unsure of whether she wants a repeat of the kiss. She's unsure of whether she wants to sit down and talk to Ron. She's unsure of whether she _can_ talk to him, now, without crying or shouting or kissing him again.

She hopes he'll make the decision for her, because this time she cannot fight her way through the confusion to the right answer.

* * *

**A/N: **For ModernDayRapunzel, who suggested **Hermione**.


	75. skilled: harry and tonks

**Characters: **Nymphadora Tonks + Harry Potter  
**Theme: **Skilled

Tonks acted like she didn't need any of the answers because they were irrelevant to the joy that touched every insignificant segment of her life.

Beneath all that nonchalance, she was terrified. She met Harry Potter and inside she shivered with fear because everyone told her that he was the key to ending this. When she met him he was just a boy with a wand and a messy bedroom. She didn't think he was skilled enough to spell his clothing into piles, let alone save the world.

But then, she'd never been the one with the right answers.

* * *

**A/N: **For Jojor99, who suggested **Harry **and **Tonks **with the prompt **skilled**.


	76. duel: salazar and helga

**Characters: **Salazar Slytherin + Helga Hufflepuff  
**Theme: **Duel

It was, unsurprisingly, Godric's idea. He suggested it after Salazar insulted Helga's selection of first years again. They met in the lounge, where Rowena spelled away the table and Helga and Salazar faced each other at the center of the floor. She bowed, he followed.

"Scared, Hufflepuff?"

"Never." Her wand fell and he raised a shield in defense.

They danced around each other, a waltz of multicolored lights and curses. Neither knew who would win. Neither particular cared. This was not a war. They didn't doubt each other's abilities; Salazar would _never_ underestimate her.  
He just underestimated her students.

* * *

**A/N: **For Reciprocal, who suggested **Salazar **and **Helga **with the prompt **duel**.


	77. two roads: barty crouch jr and sr

**Characters: **Barty Crouch Junior + Barty Crouch Senior  
**Theme: **Two Roads

Sitting alone in his office at the Ministry, Barty Crouch Senior sometimes thought about his son. Barty Crouch Junior was apparently doing quite well at Hogwarts.

But Barty had been different lately. Over summer holidays, or when he was home for Christmas, Crouch would comment on something self-evident, like, "Rogers is a decent Chaser", and his son would dismiss it, saying, "Isn't he a Muggleborn?"

Crouch had always believed there were two roads to take in this life. He was starting to worry that his son was taking the wrong one.

They were Crouches, though. They always chose right.

* * *

**A/N: **For Hermione Draco Holmes, who suggested the characters **Barty Crouch Senior **and **Barty Crouch Junior**.


	78. without time travel: draco and rowena

**Characters: **Draco Malfoy + Rowena Ravenclaw  
**Theme: **"Without Time Travel"

The Grey Lady shadows Draco silently sixth year until he demands, "Stop following me."

She flounders, her hands flying to her chest. "You'd have gotten on well with my mother," she muses. "Of course, without time travel, that's impossible."

Draco's already disregarding the laws of physics with the vanishing cabinet trick. Time travel sounds appealing; it'd be nice to go somewhere beyond the Dark Lord's reach.

The Grey Lady continues, "Even then, she'd abandon you once she found out your House. Rowena Ravenclaw never liked Slytherin."

Draco snorts. He ought to have learned by now that everyone's a bigot.

* * *

**A/N:** For Tat1312, who suggested **Draco** and **Rowena Ravenclaw** and the prompt **"without time travel."**


	79. white: ariana

**Character: **Ariana Dumbledore  
**Theme: **white

Ariana liked watching the white summer clouds float across the backdrop of sky, but she never imagined shapes in them. She already knew what they were. The whitest clouds were really her dreams, drifting in the atmosphere because they couldn't find a place to settle in this slippery caustic world.

She might have been sorry that she couldn't keep her dreams, but she was little and lost, so she was glad that they had found somewhere safe to go.  
Ariana hoped that she would be as lucky as her dreams, someday. The world would look pretty from up there.

* * *

**A/N:** For Tat1312, who suggested **Ariana** with the prompt **white**.


	80. funerals blaise

**Character: **Blaise Zabini  
**Theme: **Funerals

By the seventh one, Blaise had decided that there were worse things than funerals.

At funerals it was socially acceptable to drink too much. Girls wanted him more when he cried a few stoic tears over the death of his (first, second, third…) step-father. His mother always belied her red-rimmed eyes with red-glossed smiles.

Really, weddings and funerals were quite similar: Blaise got tipsy, he got laid, and his mother laughed a lot. He preferred funerals, though. They signaled a temporary end to his mother's madness. He always stupidly hoped that this (second, third, fourth…) time would satisfy her.

* * *

**A/N:** For andthenshesaid, who suggested **Blaise **with the prompt **funerals**.


	81. sugar mice: crookshanks and mrs norris

**Characters: **Mrs. Norris + Crookshanks  
**Theme: **Sugar Mice

Crookshanks believed the time had come to put Mrs. Norris in her place, so he stole sugar mice from a table in the common room. Mrs. Norris would feel horribly silly when she realized that the mouse she had been chasing was sweet and sticky rather than soft and salty. _If_ she realized, that is – sometimes Crookshanks wondered if she was self-aware at all.

But he didn't count on her looking like a lioness when she pounced around the corner, her rat-tail twitching, and caught the sugar mouse in her paws.  
He may have been too quick to judge.

* * *

**A/N:** For Elizabeth Lullaby, who suggested **Mrs. Norris **and **Crookshanks **with the prompt **sugar mice**.


	82. book smart: hermione

**Character: **Hermione Granger  
**Theme: **Book Smart

Hermione went to the library after finding out she was pregnant, where books with awkward titles like _Natural Remedies for this Magical Time_ convinced her that she didn't like reading anymore. Reading had turned scary.

Ginny came round and found Ron reading a book on childbirth, while Hermione skimmed a catalogue from Madame Malkin's.

"You realize that if you spend your pregnancy looking at catalogues, your child will only care about stilettos and ascots?" Ginny asked.

"Lies."

"It's fact!"

Their child _would_ be smart, like her. "Ronald, give me that book," Hermione instructed.

A relieved Ron relinquished the tome.

* * *

**A/N:** For therealginnyweasley13, who suggested **Hermione **with the prompt **book smart**.


	83. fight: scorpius and rose

**Characters: **Scorpius Malfoy + Rose Weasley  
**Theme: **Fight

Rose was dismayed to find that she had somehow dropped into a real life rendition of _Romeo and Juliet _.

"The only way this could be more of a cliché is if you had fallen for Lily," Rose told Scorpius.

"That would never happen," Scorpius snorted.

"What's wrong with Lily?"

"Nothing, she's just not you."

Rose narrowed her eyes. "Malfoy, what's wrong with Lily?"

"Well," he hesitated, "don't get pissed, all right?"

"Never." Rose crossed her fingers.

"She's a bit of a bitch."

Rose didn't speak to Scorpius for a week. He decided the Weasleys were all rather crazy.

* * *

**A/N:** For i am weasley fred, who suggested **Rose **and **Scorpius **with the prompt **Fight**.


	84. scars: lavender brown

**Character: **Lavender Brown  
**Theme: **Scars

Lavender has one scar along her collarbone. She wears off-the-shoulder tops so it's visible. She likes the way it glows in the summer, when her skin is brown from the sun. It shows off her bravery, proves that she was there, that she had suffered for the good and the right.

She has other scars. Everyone does. Some are beneath her skin, running along her memories like fault lines. The others she covers with long sleeves and one-piece bathing costumes. Because people can say whatever they like, but she's never been vapid and she has always felt too much.

* * *

**A/N:** For Shockin'BlueEyes, who suggested **Lavender Brown **with the prompt **Scars**.


	85. a little bit like love: parvati & blaise

**Characters: **Parvati Patil + Blaise Zabini  
**Theme: **A little bit like love

They never bother to blow out the candles or turn off the gas. When they meet in dark cupboards and hidden alcoves they undo buttons and zippers in the dim light from their wands. Parvati appreciates the way their skin looks when they're pressed against each other – honey brown to darker – and Blaise appreciates the way _she_ looks.

Their eyes meet and they don't blush; together they're shameless. And neither of them will say it aloud, but sometimes they both think that this thing they have, this leisurely luminescent kind of lust, is just a little bit like love.

* * *

**A/N:** For so-imperfect-its-perfect, who suggested **Parvati **and **Blaise **with the prompt **a little bit like love**.


	86. nursery rhymes: hugo and rose

**Characters: **Rose Weasley + Hugo Weasley  
**Theme: **nursery rhymes

Hermione read them _Babbitty Rabbitty _every night, because Rose liked the animagus bit. Hugo always fell asleep, because he found his own dreams more fascinating than silly rhymes.

When they were at his grandparents', his grandmother brought a book into the guestroom. Rose sat up expectantly and Hugo hugged his teddy bear, prepared to drift off at the first sign of contrived rhymes.

His grandmother began reading: "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water / Jack fell down and broke his crown / And Jill came tumbling after…"

Rose fell asleep; Hugo listened.

* * *

**A/N:** For anonymous, who suggested the prompt **nursery rhymes**.


	87. illusion: dominique

**Character: **Dominique Weasley  
**Theme: **illusion

Dominique sometimes visits the chapel off the road to Hogsmeade. The ruins are open to the sky, the door disintegrated centuries ago, and roots and crabgrass push through the flagstone floor. She's fallen in love with how the stained glass windows look after the colors have crashed from their frames. She sits on a piece of the broken ceiling and examines the delicate gray arches and swirls that once shaped the illusion of colored narratives but now reveal only watery sunlight.

It's an elegant setting for feeling inadequate, and Dom goes there maybe too much as she grows up.

* * *

**A/N:** For trixxieWeasley, who suggested **Dominique**.


	88. allies: ron, padfoot, & crookshanks

**Character: **Ron, Crookshanks, and Padfoot  
**Theme: **strange allies

Crookshanks had grown on Ron after third year, but he still didn't love him, and he certainly hadn't wanted to bring him to Grimmauld Place, where the cat would have to stay inside.

Ron came down to the living room, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, to find Crookshanks curled on the couch, purring beside the figure of the big black dog.

Ron could never understand why Sirius was so fond of the ugly orange fur-ball. It was strange – they weren't supposed to be allies. Weren't cats and dogs supposed to go at it like…well, like cats and dogs?

* * *

**A/N:** For Feff, who suggested **Ron **and **Crookshanks **and **Padfoot **and **Crookshanks **(with the prompt **strange allies**), so I put them together. Hope this was all right!


	89. mistake: arnold the pygmy puff

**Character: **Arnold the Pygmy Puff (and Fred and George)  
**Theme: **Mistake

The thing is purple. Really purple, I mean, this awful bright color that burns my eyes. And Fred's horrendously pleased about it, like it's some fucking goldmine, rather than a mistake. I think it's one of our biggest screw-ups; much worse than that time the daydream charm was too strong and we hallucinated for six days straight.

Fred says girls will buy them. He's insane, of course, but girls like purple. Maybe we'll breed some in pink, too. Might as well go all the way, Fred says.

It isn't until Ginny buys one that I'm certain he was right.

* * *

**A/N:** For Feff, who suggested **Arnold the Pygmy Puff.**


	90. release: harry and ron

**Character: **Harry Potter + Ronald Weasley  
**Theme: **Release

There's all this messy aftermath they have to get through. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stand before audiences and mask their emotions with smiles and speeches. They're all wound tight.

Harry finds Ron contemplating the cap of a Butterbeer bottle in the Burrow's kitchen. He's reminded of their first Divination lesson back in third year and he asks, "Reckon you see a grim in there?"

Ron turns to stare at him in baffled silence for a moment, and then he remembers, too, and he bursts out laughing.

They laugh until they're both crying, and it's a sweet sort of release.

* * *

**A/N:** For jojor99, who suggested **Harry **and **Ron **with the prompt **release****.**


	91. desire: ginny

**Character: **Ginny Weasley  
**Theme: **Desire

For her, it's always been about fire. Whether it's rational or normal or anything she's not sure, but she really likes the heat of it, the way it flicks bright sparks up the chimney or into the sky. She likes it in a metaphorical sense, too, like when Harry lets himself go and pulls her close enough that her skin feels like it's burning against his.

But she still wants more. She wants so much fire that her skin sizzles when she presses her fingertips against cool glass.  
If desire granted wishes, she'd have fallen to ashes years ago.

* * *

**A/N:** For jojor99, who suggested **Ginny **with the prompt **desire****.**


	92. fairytale: james sirius

**Character: **James Sirius Potter  
**Theme: **Fairytale

He's fairly certain that he will succeed in life. He is, after all, James Potter; he's got badass blood.

But then there's this whole other expectation, this one he won't admit to because it's girly and sounds like something Lucy would have said when she was little. He wants a happily ever after, the way girls always do in books. He'd like a princess to rescue (and who cares about fucking gender roles?). He's sort of certain that he won't get one – after all, he's too old for true love and all that shit.

But he's still stupidly hoping.

* * *

**A/N:** For jojor99, who suggested **James Sirius. **


	93. airoplanes: arthur

**Character: **Arthur Weasley  
**Theme: **Air-o-planes

Harry turned from the ticket desk and smiled at the sight of his father-in-law unwittingly mimicking a young Muggle as he stared out at Heathrow's airplanes.

"Ready, Arthur?"

"We're really going to go up in one of those air-o-planes?" Arthur asked.

"As long as we get through security soon."

"But how does it stay up?" Arthur lowered his voice. "I know you've explained it to me before, but I just do not understand how it can work without magic."

"You'll see once we're up there," Harry promised. "It takes faith."

It was May second, and they were going flying.

* * *

**A/N: **For Feff, who suggested **Arthur Weasley** with the theme **air-o-planes**.


	94. the weasley code: the weasleys

**Characters: **The Weasleys  
**Theme: **The Weasley Code

Ginny held a bottle of Firewhiskey loosely in one hand. George tugged tufts of grass from the ground. Percy, Charlie, and Bill had all been crying and Ron was picking at the skin by his thumbnail.

Ginny took a swig from the bottle before passing the drink to Charlie.

"I hereby enact the Weasley Code." Ginny hadn't said those words since she was six.

"We are to laugh." Charlie didn't feel stupid saying it.

"And smile." Ron did, a little.

"And support." Percy felt queasy.

"And fight." Bill had always chosen first.

"And joke." George's voice shook. "And protect."

* * *

**A/N:** For Feff, who suggested the theme **The Weasley Code.**


	95. apparition: cho and lupin

**Characters: **Cho Chang + Remus Lupin  
**Theme: **Apparition

Okay, he's old and a little thin. But there's something dreamy about the tragedy in his eyes. That sounds strange, but if you had sat through that many Defense lessons with nothing to look at but his eyes, you'd have a bit of an obsession with them, too.

She thinks about arriving at his place as an apparition in the night – something he'd never be able to refuse.

Of course, she couldn't apparate, even if it were possible inside Hogwarts. She's just too young, in every way.

But where's the harm in dreams, if you never act on them?

* * *

**A/N:** For Elizabeth Lullaby, who suggested **Cho Chang **and **Remus Lupin**, with the theme **Apparition**.


	96. night and day: albus and lily

**Characters: **Lily Luna Potter + Albus Severus Potter  
**Theme:** Night and Day

It astounds Ginny sometimes, how many ways there are to resist stereotypes. She looks at her youngest children and wonders where they could have come from. Albus has fought and fought to be seen as something other than a clone of his father, and she can see the effort Lily puts into pretending like she's barely a Potter, let alone a ringer for Ginny herself.

And even though they've both pushed themselves as far from the family as they can get, they've gone in opposite directions, so looking at Lily and Albus is like looking at night and day.

* * *

**A/N**: For Sparkle Ninja27, who suggested **Lily** and **Albus** with the theme** Night and Day**.


	97. portrait: lily and snape

**Characters:** Lily Luna Potter + Severus Snape  
**Theme:** Portrait

Lily first got called to the headmaster's office in her fourth year, when he caught her lacing the Gryffindor common room with dung bombs.

He left her alone in the circular room and Lily approached Severus Snape's portrait. The sallow-skinned man stared out at her through critical eyes.

"Hello," Lily said. The portrait didn't respond.

"I've been rather stupid," Lily confessed. "I was pulling a prank and I got caught."

"You take after your father, then."

Lily shook her head. "You never did catch him, did you? I take after no one."

"I disagree." But he was almost smiling.

* * *

**A/N:** For andthenshesaid, who suggested **Lily Luna** and **Snape**, with the prompt **portrait**.


	98. goat: aberforth

**Character:** Aberforth Dumbledore  
**Theme:** Goat

The truth of the matter is, he never really intended for it to go that far. But when you've got all these ideas burning in your mind and you can only think of the possibility of seeing them appear in reality it's difficult to stop.

When he enchanted the poor thing to talk, he wasn't really thinking. He didn't know that goats liked to talk about topics the Ministry hated. When he couldn't undo the curse and the thing wouldn't shut up, just kept going on about animal rights…it was the only time he ever appreciated his brother's influence.

* * *

**A/N:** For My Desk's Name is Alfred, who suggested the backstory of **Aberforth **and his **goat.**


	99. childhood: wealseys and potters

**Characters:** the Weasleys + the Potters  
**Theme: **childhood

If they had been born squibs there would have been an empty echo to their pulses, something lacking in their blood. They all whispered the secret of magic into their younger siblings' ears, promised future enchantments and someday power. The knowledge curled content on their tongues, releasing bursts of confidence in tense moments during their childhoods.

The Weasleys and the Potters survived on rivalries; they chose and discarded favorites viciously. But they were connected through more than blood, and they had faith that whichever way their magic pushed them, it would never pull them too far from their family.

* * *

**A/N: **This is the last one, and it is for tat1312. She has stuck with me during this nearly year-long project, and because she's reviewed nearly every (if not every) drabble, even the ones that didn't really deserve reviews.

Also, thank you to everyone who reviewed along the way, and to everyone who suggested prompts and characters! I never expected this series to receive so many reviews, and I'm so very grateful to all of you who've read any little bit of it.


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